Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/35

of Indiana, by which Cabinet positions were pledged both to Cameron and to Smith in consideration for the votes controlled by them, in the convention, and which pledges Lincoln fulfilled, and, in that way made himself a party to these corrupt bargains. (1 Morse, 169; Lamon, 449.) He was nominated purely as the sectional candidate of a sectional party, and not only received no votes in several of the Southern States, but he failed to get a popular majority of the section which nominated and elected him, and received nearly one million votes less than a popular majority of the vote of the country. (1 Morse, 178.)

(6) After his election, he sneaked into the national Capitol at night in a way he was, and ought to have been, ashamed of the rest of his life, and commenced his administration by acts of deceit and duplicity and by palpable violations of the Constitution he had sworn to support, as already set forth herein, and by plunging the country into war without any authority or justification for so doing.

(7) At the end of two years his administration had become so unpopular and was deemed so inefficient, that the appointment of a Dictator was seriously considered, and Lamon says, if Grant had not succeeded in capturing Vicksburg in July 1863, "certain it is that President Lincoln would have been deposed, and a Dictator would have been placed in his stead as chief executive, until peace could be restored to the nation by separation or otherwise." (Lamon's Recollections, 183-4.)

(8) We have already alluded to his standing with the Northern people at the election in November, 1864, when nearly one-half of these people voted against him, and when, but for the improper use of the army in controlling the election, it is believed he would have been defeated by McClellan, since in many of the States carried by Lincoln the popular vote was very close. (See Butler's Book and McClellan's Platform.}

(9) Between the time of his second election and his assassination, the South had become so completely exhausted, that he had only to keep his armies, as already marshalled, in the field, to accomplish its defeat. Says Lamon:

﻿"At the time McClellan took command of that army (Army of the Potomac), the South was powerful in all the elements of successful warfare. It had much changed when General Grant